Another start-up, Priceline.com, has patented its Internet version of an ancient auction technique, the name-your-price "reverse" auction, and is suing Microsoft's Expedia.com travel service.
Falling prices reverse this dynamic.
Sitting across a table from Indian leaders who chewed coca leaves throughout the night, government ministers agreed to prop up corn prices, reverse a land titling process that would have raised taxes, and return water rights from the government to Indian peasants.
Bond prices reversed alongside stocks, falling 8/32, to 97 16/32.
However this month's Insurance Premium Tax hike could force up prices, reversing nearly two years of price cuts.
Crude oil prices reversed their gains to close down 15 cents, at $70.47 a barrel in New York trading.
But by the afternoon, prices reversed again, partly in reaction to new statistics from the Energy Department showing that inventories of crude oil in the United States fell unexpectedly last week.
Metal prices reversed earlier gains in a sure-fire sign that investors are nervous and in these circumstances riskier assets such as equities are always going to suffer.
The deal comes in a week that saw the Canadian government block the hostile takeover bid for Potash Corporation by the Anglo-Australian mining group BHP Billiton, and as the Canadian dollar, which has recently been boosted by strong commodity prices, reversed losses this week.
Both sales and gasoline prices reversed their gains in 2009.
The positive factors for commodity prices reversed, and prices have fallen, in many cases more than 50%.
